William Freeman Vilas

William Freeman Vilas (9 July 1840-27 August 1908) was US Postmaster General from 6 March 1885 to 6 January 1888 (succeeding Frank Hatton and preceding Donald M. Dickinson), Secretary of the Interior from 16 January 1888 to 6 March 1889 (succeeding Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus Lamar II and preceding John Willock Noble), and a US Senator from Wisconsin (D) from 4 March 1891 to 3 March 1897 (interrupting John Coit Spooner's terms).

Biography
William Freeman Vilas was born in Chelsea, Vermont in 1840, the son of Levi Baker Vilas. The family moved to Madison, Wisconsin in 1851, and Vilas served as a Union Army captain (and later lieutenant-colonel) during the American Civil War. He then became a law professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and he served in the State Assembly in 1885. Vilas went on to serve as Postmaster General from 1885 to 1888 and Secretary of the Interior from 1888 to 1889, and he became an activist for German-Americans when he protested against the 1889 Bennett Law, which required schools to use only the English language. From 1891 to 1897, he served in the US Senate, and he became a prominent Bourbon Democrat and the chief defender of Grover Cleveland's administration. In 1896, he lost for re-election, and he attended the Democratic National Convention that year, although he withdrew after the adoption of the free-silver plank. He died in Madison in 1908 at the age of 68.